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LG Voyager Cell Phone Review - Imaging

Alfredo Padilla Published on December 04, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

Resolution (2.93)
To test the resolution of photos taken by the LG Voyager's 2 megapixel camera we take a series of photos of an industry standard resolution chart and run them through the Imatest software. Imatest analyzes the photos to see how many alternating white and black lines can be discerned before they start blurring together, a score called line widths per pixel height (lw/ph).
The LG Voyager's camera scored 837.9 lw/ph horizontal and 838.9 lw/ph vertical in our test of resolution. This is not a particularly impressive score, you can see below that only the Pantech Duo and Helio Ocean did worse in this test than the LG Voyager. Other phones that also have two megapixel cameras, like the iPhone, have put up significantly higher scores than the Voyager.

Cell Phone	LG Voyager	HTC Touch on Sprint	Pantech Duo
Score	2.93	3.56	1.09
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	837.9 / 838.9	895 / 1082	512 / 457
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia E90	Helio Ocean	Apple iPhone
Score	5.27	2.18	4.18
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1089 / 992.9	701 / 476.6	970 / 879
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (5.31)
To test the quality of the color produces by the Voyager's camera we took photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart, which displays 24 different colors in a grid. These photos are analyzed by Imatest to compare the captured colors of the photos to the original colors.
Imatest produces the chart above, which shows you the captured color in the outer box, the corrected color in the inner box and the ideal color in the small vertical rectangle. Imatest also produces the chart below, where the ideal color is indicated by a square and the actual captured color by a circle The longer the lines between the two the more inaccurate the colors.
As you can see, the LG Voyager has some serious issues in the reds and yellows: colors in that area are significantly under-saturated. Adjusting this problem in software like Photoshop shouldn't be too much of an issue, but it is an additional hassle. Apart from this issue though the LG Voyager does a good job in color fidelity, with very little error in other colors. As a result it ends up with an overall score that isn't too bad, you can see below that it's comparable to the iPhone and Nokia E90 and significantly better than the HTC Touch or Pantech Duo.

Cell Phone	LG Voyager	HTC Touch on Sprint	Pantech Duo
Score	5.31	2.23	2.34
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia E90	Helio Ocean	Apple iPhone
Score	5.77	6.66	5.22
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (0.95)
To see how much noise is produced in photos taken by the LG Voyager's camera we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels. We then use Imatest to analyze the amount of noise produced at each lighting level. Our final score is based both on total noise at each lighting level and consistency across lighting levels. The LG Voyager didn't do particularly well in our noise test. The total noise at the two highest lighting levels was reasonably low. In lower lighting conditions, however, it jumped significantly. The lowest lighting level had a terrible amount of noise. You can see below that the Voyager put up the worse noise score amongst our comparison handsets, although you'll also note that none of them did a particularly impressive job. The truth is no cell phone camera does very well when it comes to noise.

Cell Phone	Score
LG Voyager	0.95
HTC Touch on Sprint	1.14
Pantech Duo	1.07
Nokia E90	1.34
Helio Ocean	1.14
Apple iPhone	1.20

Live Preview (6.0)
The LG Voyager's live preview does a generally good job. It uses the entire screen, which provides for a very large viewfinder. Items on the screen are sharp and colors are reproduced accurately and reflect your final photo as well. Where we did run into a slight problem was with panning, where the refresh rate caused some serious pixelation and fuzziness. You'll have to stop panning and hold the camera still for a sec to get the good view back again, but once you do you'll be fine.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (3.51)
To see how quickly you can take a photo with the LG Voyager when you're not actually in the camera application we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have captured a photo. We do this test until we get a consistent result. The LG Voyager took 5.7 seconds to go from a standby to a captured photo. This is not a particularly good time, although we have seen worse as illustrated in the table below. The LG Voyager is slowed down by the auto-focus lens on the camera that takes the time to make sure the scene is in focus. Auto-focus cameras are generally slower in this test than fixed focus cameras. The six-second delay means you'll likely miss spur of the moment shots.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
LG Voyager	5.7	3.51
HTC Touch on Sprint	2.7	7.41
Pantech Duo	6.67	3.00
Nokia E90	7.55	2.65
Helio Ocean	4.1	4.88
Apple iPhone	2.43	8.23

Shot to Shot Time (0.45)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how quickly you can take a series of photos with a camera. Good shot to shot time is important for capturing motion shots like at a sporting event. When possible we try to do this test using a camera's burst mode. The LG Voyager doesn't have a burst mode, so we were stuck doing the test manually. It consequently did pretty poorly in this test: it took 27.2 seconds to capture four photos, which works out to 0.15 frames per second (fps). This is just about one of the worst scores we've ever seen from a camera. In the Voyager's case the terrible score was the result of a convergence of features, or lack of them, including no burst mode and the inability to turn off auto-review and the auto-focus camera. This combination means you won't be able to capture many action shots with the LG Voyager.

Cell Phone	FPS	Score
LG Voyager	0.15	0.45
HTC Touch on Sprint	1.67	5.00
Pantech Duo	0.81	2.43
Nokia E90	0.61	1.83
Helio Ocean	1.25	3.75
Apple iPhone	0.4	1.20

Shutter to Shot Time (1.54)
Shutter to shot time is the amount of time it takes for a photo to be captured once you've hit the shutter button. We expect phones with auto-focus cameras like the LG Voyager to do worse on this test than those with fixed focus lenses simply because of the time it takes for the camera to put the scene into focus. The Voyager lived up to our expectations, taking 1.3 seconds between shutter and shot. This is a long time, even compared to other auto-focus cameras. The Nokia E90 is also an auto-focus camera, but it did  pretty well in this test. What it comes down to is this: if you want to take advantage of the auto-focus, make sure your subject is sitting still, and if they're not switch the auto-focus off.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
LG Voyager	1.3	1.54
HTC Touch on Sprint	0.26	7.69
Pantech Duo	1.03	1.94
Nokia E90	0.247	8.10
Helio Ocean	0.6	3.33
Apple iPhone	0.4	5.00

Interface (7.0)
We like the camera interface on the LG Voyager. When used in closed position, which is where we expect most people will be taking their photos, the entire screen is taken up by the viewfinder. At the top right are two small icons, one of which shows you are in still capture mode and the other shows what resolution you are capturing. At the bottom right is an options button. The left has a brightness control. Along the bottom are a series of icons for various controls like white balance, timer and mode. Tapping on one of these icons will bring up a small menu with the corresponding settings. Everything is in a white stencil so you can still see what you're looking at with the viewfinder, which we appreciate. Overall the interface is very camera-like and intuitive.

Photo Album Software Internal (5.0)
The photo album software on the LG Voyager is pretty basic. There's a three by three thumbnail grid with a larger preview of the currently selected picture above or to the right of this grid, depending upon which screen you're looking at it on. We were happy to see that thumbnails are rendered very quickly. You can view photos in a larger view and from the menu you can also select a full screen view that takes up the entire display. Your photo management options are very basic, you can send a photo via MMS or Bluetooth and there's also a separate "Manage My Pics" view where you can select multiple photos to be moved, deleted etc. There's no support for folders and no option to change the sorting of your photos. You can print from the album software via Bluetooth if you have a compatible printer and you can set the photo as your wallpaper or assign it to a contact. Overall the software is very basic, about what we would expect from a regular cell phone and not as good as the Gallery software you get on Series 60 devices or even Windows Mobile's Pictures & Video software, both of which support things like folders and re-sorting.

Manual Control (0.0)
The LG Voyager's camera does not provide you with any manual controls.

Zoom (0.0)
There is no zoom, either digital or optical, on the LG Voyager.

Focus (5.0)
The LG Voyager has auto-focus, which activates when you press the shutter key. We like auto-focus cameras because they help you take better photos, however they also slow you down as the camera puts the scene into focus.

Flash (0.0)
The LG Voyager lacks a flash for the camera.

Metering (6.0)
The LG Voyager is one of a small selection of new phones we've seen with advanced metering controls. Most phones have simple manual brightness controls to adjust the brightness of the photo you capture, and the Voyager has these. It also has true metering controls, albeit only two options: average or center-weighted. Metering controls such as these allow you to indicate from which point or points in the scene lighting is judged.

White Balance (2.0)
The LG Voyager has a selection of White Balance presets, like most camera phones we've seen. It does not have evaluative white balance, which determines true white using a white card.

Image Handling (4.0)
The LG Voyager provides you with only a couple of basic image handling options. You can rename and rotate photos. There's also the ability to zoom in on a photo you are viewing, but this is not saved like a true crop would be.

Video

Overall Video Score (2.0)
The LG Voyager captures video at a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 and 13 frames per second. This is decent quality on paper for a cell phone, unfortunately the actual video produced doesn't live up to the specs. We found the video the LG Voyager took was very pixelated, even when viewed at only twice it's actual size on a computer screen. Forget about viewing it full screen or on a television. We would even hesitate to use this video on Youtube. Really it's only going to be good for sending via a multimedia message where you know people are going to view it on a small screen.

Video Resolution (4.68)
To test the resolution of videos produced by the LG Voyager we take video of the same industry standard resolution chart we use for our stills resolution test. We then run frames from this video through Imatest to produce a line widths per pixel height (lw/ph) score, which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they start blurring together. The LG Voyager produces a reasonable score in this test of 222 lw/ph horizontal and 211 lw/ph vertical. This is similar to what we've seen from the HTC Touch and Helio Ocean. It's far worse than the Nokia E90, which is one of the few phones on the market that records video at 640 x 480 and 30 fps.

Cell Phone	lw/ph horizontal/vertical	Score
LG Voyager	222/211	4.68
HTC Touch on Sprint	204/221	4.51
Pantech Duo	247/215	5.31
Nokia E90	351.4/345.2	12.13
Helio Ocean	283/160.1	4.53
Apple iPhone	n/a - no video recording	0.00

Video Compression (2.0)
The LG Voyager captures video in a variant of 3GP with the .3G2 extension. This is the standard for mobile video and is fine for multimedia messages, but the use of this compression may also contribute to the poor overall quality of the video. It would have been nice to have the option to capture in a more robust codec like H264.

Interface (7.0)
The camcorder interface on the LG Voyager is very similar to the camera interface. The major differences include a zoom at the top of the screen and fewer controls along the bottom. We do like the camera-like interface, the fact the whole screen is used as a viewfinder, and the stenciled icons so you can still see what you're shooting when adjusting controls.

Manual Control (0.0)
The LG Voyager doesn't offer any manual controls for video capture.

Zoom (1.0)
Unlike the stills camera the LG Voyager's video camera does have an optical zoom. Of course all optical zoom does is crop and resize what you're seeing so it has the effect of severely reducing the quality of the video. Still, it might be useful in some circumstances so we award one point for it.

Editing (0.0)
The LG Voyager doesn't offer users any editing options like trimming the end of videos or adding a voice over.

Modes (2.0)
The LG Voyager doesn't offer any specific modes for MMS or Email video and unlike the stills camera there are no metering options. You do have some presets for white balance however.

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